


The Abyss Gazes Elsewhere

by Draikinator



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Post-Series, Shattered Glass, Tags will update as chapters do, ignoring rid entirely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4333284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draikinator/pseuds/Draikinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soundwave's shadowzone escape plan runs into a last minute hitch that sends him and the Autobot's human pet into an alternate universe he wishes he liked more than he did. Meanwhile, Bee tries to find his sparkbrother and Blurr and Hot Rod try to convince everyone on Cybertron that things have not spiralled COMPLETELY out of control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Accidents

Soundwave let his servos rest against the keypad of the ship’s computer, screen cracked and smoking, in silence. He was, of course, unhurt. He’d learned very quickly that nothing in the corporeal universe could really affect him, though he was capable of hurting himself if he wanted to. Not that he did, of course. Not that he had much else to do.

His fingers quivered uselessly against the keys, frustrated by their idleness.

The Nemesis had crashed, its systems were down and Soundwave’s emergency energon stores were becoming very quickly depleted. His options were few and far between, and he’d reached a certain plateau of desperation in his temporal exile.

He opened up a tracer to the primitively encoded Autobot commline utilized by the smallest human. The hacker.

* * *

 

Raf leaned into his torqing, aware he was probably being far more delicate than was really necessary but refusing to use any less care in the insertion. This particular rotary joint had taken a month and a half to build properly and he wasn’t prepared to ruin it with a bad connection and waste another month and a half on it.

He shuffled back, wiping sweat and grease from his brow in satisfaction.

“Coming along pretty nicely, isn’t it?” Fowler was leaning forward onto the railing of the catwalk, smiling.

Raf waved up at him tiredly, “Really is! If Miko keeps giving me scrap about the tail, though-”

“It’s really not my fault you built a furry robot,” Miko’s high pitched voice sing-songed as she slid out of the elevator doors at the end of the catwalk and skipped over to the railing to stand beside Fowler and survey Raf’s work below. “You build a cat, I’m going to call it that.”

Raf pointed at the heavily stabilized legs of the Deployer Armour stubbornly, “Look, I don’t care how much I’ve learned from the relics, four legs?? Better stabilization than two. Giving it four legs just means I can focus my time problem solving other things instead of balance scrap.”

“And the tail?”

“Like a cheetah’s- built for stabilization and ruddering.”

“And the ears?”

“Okay, actually, you got me on that one. Once it had four legs and a tail I figured I might as well take the aesthetic all the way, huh?”

“I still think it needs a face,” Jack said, stepping up beside her and rubbing his hair out of its mussy helmet-pressed state, “It looks so creepy.”

Raf regarded it for a moment, and it wasn’t like he didn’t agree. The deployer armour was a solid fifteen feet long, twenty including the tail, distinctly cat-like, and faceless. The armour’s “head” was merely a rotary bulb inset with sensory mechanics- optical, auditory, heat, motion, etc. The grey-black colour scheme was mottled, uneven, and ugly- a product of inconsistent supplies and last minute design alterations. It looked a bit like a grey tabby, Raf thought, only with a screen for a face and those stupid spikes along its spinal struts Miko had vocally and loudly insisted upon.

He was actually really proud of it. Most seventeen year olds could not say that they had created a suit of fully functional alien armour complete with vacuum-safe breathing and atmospheric apparati with the technical assistance of a highly advanced race of mechanoid lifeforms. Most seventeen year olds were not Rafael Esquivel.

In fact, most seventeen year olds had very little in common with Rafael Esquivel, meaning that the only friends he had within a million years of seventeen were Miko and Jack, and, perhaps Agent Fowler, if one would consider them friends.

Raf wiped a smudge of grease from the Deployer Armour’s visor self consciously, “I can’t keep making cosmetic changes. It doesn’t even matter, this is just the prototype anyway.”

Jack gave him a dubious but conceding frown and a shrug, then shouldered Miko, “Hey, me and Miko are gonna hit the pub, wanna come? I’ll pop for soda if you want.”

“Jack, Miko’s still only twenty,” Fowler said, chastising and Miko tittered with laughter, clasping her hands together.

“Aww, he thinks we’re going to go to some crummy American bar. No way, we’re going to Tokyo so we can crash at my place! I have to feed my cats.”

Fowler sighed in a tired, resigned way, “Fine, but I’m not letting Rafael get caught up in this. At least one of you kids isn’t trying to stress me into an early grave with all your timezone hopping, boozy-woozy willy-nilly nonsense.”

“I’m hardly a kid anymore, Fowler-” Jack started, but Raf cut him off before they could start this old argument back up.

“I’ve got too much work I want to get done tonight, anyway,” he said and brushed his pants of metal shavings as he stood, “but I’ll bridge you out.”

* * *

 

Bumblebee leaned off of his desk with a frustrated sigh and briefly considered shoving the stack of datapads onto the floor, before deciding instead to shuffle them into a colour coded stack and pluck a light-grey pad off of the top, glancing at the title.

Requisition Notice, Electronic Paint, Lower Peteohex, Part Three.

He dropped the pad back down and groaned. He had expected that council work would be more exciting- creating new policies to build a better Cybertron, working to abolish the old xenophobic sentiments and unofficially still enforced unjust laws and regulations. He, frankly, had expected somewhat less paperwork.

His viz screen buzzed with a commcall, playing a warbly, poorly rendered version of an Earth song.

Raf.

He hit the answer button immediately, dropping the pad as he scrambled, and the visual feed sputtered to life, edges blurred by static, corrupted just so by billions of miles of space.

“Raf! Buddy! What’s up?!”

Raf’s eyes practically sparkled with excitement and he bounced back away from the screen and waved his arms at the cat-like Deployer Armor behind him, suspiciously carefully framed within the webcam’s shot.

“Check it out!” He bubbled, “It’s not finished, but it’s functional! Gosh- it- it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Bee snickered, “It’s _impressive_ , yes. ‘Beautiful’ might need a coat of paint, though.”

Raf waved a hand dismissively, “Right, right, yes, okay, but that after I finished the compound auxiliary spinal bracers. But, Bee, it works! Like, _work_ -works!”

Bee’s optics dilated, “ _Work_ -works? Like, actually proper _work_ -works?”

Raf grinned deviously and scrambled up the armour’s back leg to stand on its haunches, “Authorization code b6-98-r13, Rafael.”

The armour split like the petals of a flower, bursting forth in shimmering metal layers and the whine of thousands of microhydraulic platelets spilling apart, and Raf winked before falling forward sharply, caught by the waves of infinitesimal mechanical components as they rearranged themselves until Raf had vanished into their depths. The deployer’s visor screen lit up energon-cyan and dimmed almost immediately, and after a quiet moment, the cat like-armour shook itself, stretching robot limbs and sitting back on its haunches.

“Primus…” Bee said, jaw slack.

“Heh. Primus had nothing to do with it.” Raf’s voice was oddly filtered by the armour’s supplementary vocalizer, deeper, and a bit too staticcy to pass as native Cybertronain, but impressive nonetheless.

Raf strutted back and forth a few times, mostly just to prove it wouldn’t fall to piece the moment he changed the balance.

“Hang on. No, we have to celebrate. I’m bridging in. Let Fowler know, alright?”

Raf’s armour’s paws tittered on the ground excitedly before he gave an awkward half salute, “Slag yes! See you soon, Bee!”

Bee cut the commline and buzzed excitedly. He’d been looking for a good excuse to visit Earth for awhile now- he and Raf were both so busy these days that they almost never found time to enjoy one another’s company like the old days.

He looked at the stack of datapads on his desk, then bit his lip and sighed, standing and buzzing his door open.

His secretary/assistant/intern/apprentice was sitting in the desk built into the wall outside his office, both pedes kicked up and playing some kind of mobile game on his datapad.

“Hot Rod!”

Hot Rod jolted, dropped the pad in his surprise and floundering out of his seat as he tried to yank his pedes back onto the floor, “Bee! Yes, right, uh, yeah! What’s up?”

“I need to take a few personal days for Earth stuff. Can’t be put off. Do you think you can handle covering my paperwork until I get back?”

Bee wondered for a moment if Hot Rod was going to explode, because he certainly looked like it, knocking things off the desk in his excitement, “Primus!! You mean it?? Me??”

“It’s just clerical work. You do pretty well without clear instruction, I think you’ll be fine.”

Hot Rod saluted a bit overdramatically, straightening his spinal strut, “Yes, sir!” He paused, “Can I use your office?”

Bee rolled his optics, “Yes.”

The noise Hot Rod made was indescribable and he scrambled over his desk and through the open door of Bee’s office without further discussion.

Bee grimaced, but he was sure it would be fine.

* * *

 

Raf adjusted himself carefully in front of the Cybertronian databank, wiggling the dextrous toes of the armour’s pseudo-paws and checking their flexibility before tapping in some random keys experimentally, testing the accuracy of the armour’s motions and finding himself pleased.

He sat back, eyeing the data readouts scroll down the screen as the Cybertronian side space bridge locked onto his location, then paused, leaning forward to inspect an anomalous line of data, but it scrolled off screen before he could really read it.

He glanced back at the cleared away bridging area on the far side of the warehouse, yellow and black striped tiles, and ejected himself from the armour, crawling out of the platelets and back down to the floor, scrambling back to the human sized table and his laptop, tapping open programs and fullscreening the datadump of incoming spacebridge codes- and this time, the string of unfamiliar commands was longer and more concerning. He swung back away from the laptop when the room was lit neon green with the swirling illumination of the spacebridge portal spiralling into existence on the platform- and back to his computer, face paling sheet-white when he saw Bee’s “activating spacebridge in 10” message on the bottom right corner of the screen.

This was someone else’s spacebridge.

* * *

 

Blurr was alternating between tapping his left pede against the bottom rung of the stool and the fingers on his right servo against the desk beneath the databank keypad in a way that could be described as idle if it wasn’t rapid and uninterrupted, jerky and neurotic, and he leaned back as the computer ran through the info dump and finished its calculations.

“Ah, sorry, Senator Bumblebee, sir,” he mused, clenching his fingers against his palm and flexing his toepedes distractedly, fluttering the platelets along his arms as quietly as he could, “I find it rather difficult to sit still, but I know how obnoxious it is and I’ll try to be quiet until you’ve gone through I promise, I don’t mean to do it, really, I don’t-”

Senator Bumblebee gave him a curious, confused look, and laughed, “Huh? What, no, go ahead, I don’t care.”

“Oh,” Blurr said, frowning, before slowly unclenching his fingers, one by one, then returning to rapid, neurotic, jittery, asynchronistic tapping, “That really doesn’t bother you? It bothers everyone else, and really, I swear I’m not offended and I don’t mind being quiet, that’s why I took this job here, see? No one ever leaves the planet anymore so I’m mostly on my own, and I can be quiet for a few minutes at a time, really, I can-”

Senator Bumblebee tapped the side of his face and a standard issue war-grade voxbox slid out, covering the lower half of his face and he chirped something high in the universal Cybertronian Blurr had never had the chance to learn and Blurr laughed politely, uncertain. Senator Bumblebee slid the voxbox back into his helm.

“Trust me, I know what it’s like to be obnoxious as the pit. You can’t help it. I don’t mind. Tap a hole in the floor, do whatever, uh- I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Blurr! Sir,” Blurr blurted, and felt like tapping a hole through the floor was suddenly a realistic fear, “My name is Blurr. I’m a post-war first waver, sir, from Altihex.”

The Senator nodded, “I’m sorry I don’t remember you then. I was in Altihex for the first wave. I used to actually have time to show up for the waves back then.” He sighed, a distant look in his optics and Blurr alternated between tapping the toes of his pedes against eachother to the tune of Petrohexian rock song he liked.

“Ah, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, sir, I was red back then, but Doctor Knock Out said it wasn’t my colour. He said I was more of a blue-and-white person, really.”

The Senator laughed, loudly, candidly, “He did? Oh, man, odds are it’s because you look like you have a really similar alt mode to his, and he was jealous. He always does that. Do you know how few first wave speedsters are red? I swear, and no one ever called him on it!“

Blurr laughed politely again.

The data finished compiling and he spun back to the screen, before tapping on the device and firing up the bridge to the requested location. The Senator smiled, and waved at him, stepping towards the bridge and speaking quietly into his commline before he froze and grabbed the comm unit side of his helm like he was distressed- then rushed to him and the databank, harried, optics wide. Blurr rolled back off of his stool and scooted away from the databank while Senator Bumblebee tapped rapidly on the databank.

A visual communication, riddled with static flared to life with a shriek and Blurr covered his audials on instinct, but on screen he saw what looked like a primitive warehouse of some kind, definitely not Cybertronian in nature- and it was on fire. There was an organic creature- something Blurr knew from books to be a human- leaning into the visual feed and screaming something he didn’t quite catch. The organic skidded back away from the datapad when a lazerblast blew a crater to his left and went scrambling to some kind of flared open armour towards the far end of the video feed. Senator Bumblebee was screaming, too, and Blurr was fairly certain his chest was going to explode or he was going to have a spark attack, and also he was still covering his audials? Lazerfire continued on screen and Senator Bumblebee turned to him and yelled. It took Blurr a moment, but he pulled his trembling servos away from his audial flares, more hesitant than he would have liked.

“Blurr! _Listen_! Is the spacebridge locked on???”

“I- uh- I think so-” Blurr stammered, glancing back at the window behind the visual feed, “But there could have been an issue- I can double check if you want, it just-”

“No time. Blurr, listen, _listen_ , okay- I need you to close the spacebridge behind me, and then run and find Senator Arcee and tell her what happened, okay?”

Blurr nodded very quickly, feeling very small.

Senator Bumblebee turned and ran straight through the spacebridge.

* * *

Raf stared at the source location for the incoming spacebridge portal in the kind of frigid, uncertain terror he hadn’t encountered since he was a child, twelve and a quarter, because he recognized the location code. He recognized the string of numbers that had haunted his nightmares for the last five years, because he’d programmed that location code himself, by hand, into a refurbished hand-me-down laptop in a dark warehouse while he clasped his hands together and prayed to a God he was fairly convinced didn’t exist not to let his family die, or at least not to let his family die without him.

_Soundwave_.

* * *

 

Hot Rod had completed a single datapad, something about electronic paint requisitions, and immediately changed focus, brooding behind Bumblebee’s desk and looking out of the wall-sized windows down at the streets of Upper Kaon and the shimmering plated streets he’d spent so many days trying to resist speeding on.

He tweaked the golden crest that rose over his optics and folded back into audial flares on the sides of his head, imagining it was a sort of crown, like the kind he’d seen in the human movies Senator Bumblebee had stacked in the corners of his office that Hot Rod pretended he didn’t know about. Standing in this office, alone, unsupervised, with a crown, made him feel important. Responsible. Older! Older than a post-war second waver, at least, but maybe not as old as Optimus Prime, whose picture was framed at an uncomfortably large and foreboding size upon the left wall, near the desk.

Rodimus had never met Optimus Prime. He’d been born a year after his death, but the late Prime was required study in basic education, and his statues were everywhere in Kaon, something he found ironic, considering basic education also told him that pre-war Kaon had been the Decepticon capital, only becoming the Cybertronian capital (the implied Autobot capital, of course, they were all Autobots now) upon the planet’s restoration. His teacher had said that she thought ‘Team Prime’ had taken Kaon as the new capital out of spite, but he had never asked Senator Bumblebee about it, and didn’t have any plans to.

He looked back at the photo and teased the name “Rodimus” on his glossae wistfully, before climbing onto the desk to stand as dramatically as he could, fists resting on his hips, chest puffed outward, spoiler wings straining upward in a way he thought was probably imposing.

“I, Rodimus Prime, am happy to accept the burden of The Matrix of Leadership,” he said, lowering his voice and trying to mimic the way Optimus Prime sounded in the old videos, “For a burden it truly is, but a burden of power I am happy to wield. No- wait, not- not wield, like a weapon, like a- a. Frag.” He deflated, feeling foolish.

The door burst open and a moist-opticced, jittery, panicked-looking Blurr came tumbling into the room, arms waving. “Roddy Roddy _Roddy_! I need your help!”

* * *

 

Raf dove for the floor beneath the desk when a massive, dark jet shot out of the spacebridge at sound breaking levels and he wasted a few precious moments grabbing at his ears and screaming as the veritable sonic boom ripped his hearing away.

When he crawled back out from under the table, the lights were flashing emergency protocol red, and he knew from experience the alarm was blaring, even if he couldn’t hear it. Lodged in the far wall was Soundwave’s altmode- which was quickly shedding debris and jerkily transforming back to his root mode, pitch black and glowing uv-purple. Raf scrambled to his laptop, mashing keys with a desperation he’d forgotten he’d had left in him, opening the comm unit to Bee on Cybertron, emergency channel.

"Bee!” He yelled, or at least, hoped he had yelled, as he was unable to confirm the sounds coming out of his mouth, which was disconcerting at best, “Space Bridge opened with error keylogged at 17:35:84, Soundwave just smashed into the base- he’s up and he’s moving, I need you- I need you-”

Lazerfire clipped his shoulder and buried a crater in the cement floor to his left and Raf tucked and rolled, scrambling away and crawling as desperately as he could through the halo of lazerfire following him- and right into the Deployer Armour, which folded around him in a way that he was rapidly finding comforting.

It took the armour a frustrating nine point three seconds to boot up and configure, something he made a mental note to work on, because in combat, that nine point three seconds was terrifying and made him want to rip his computer in half and scream at his own stupidity. It flared to life and he gritted his teeth at the burst of sensory information that came with the sudden nerve connection- all subform electronic data comprised half of alien technology and half from theoretical calculations in sci-fi stories in academic magazines.

The blare of the alarm nearly debilitated him in its forgotten volume when his hearing burst back into existence, supplemented by the armour’s functioning auditory sensors, and he skidded behind the computer databank, panting. Soundwave was up on both pedes, approaching him slowly, arm raised and carrying a handheld Iaconian blaster pistol- small, but still deadly.

His mind raced through options before settling on appropriately old fashioned- he wasn’t built for combat, but his armour was- he had built it, after all.

Soundwave stepped into range, in front of Raf, and with a scream, Raf launched himself at the Decepticon, digging blunt metal paws into any metal he could crumple, still shrieking- and their combined weight sent the top-heavy Soundwave tumbling backward and onto the spacebridge platform, dislodging chunks of yellow-and-black striped concrete floor from itself and inlaying the ground with pockets of craters. A stray lazer blast put a hole in the ceiling and a falling metal bar from the rafters landed on Raf’s armour’s back, stunning him for the moment it took Soundwave to wrench him off his chest and toss him across the platform like a ragdoll.

He struggled back to his feet, head spinning, mind reeling against tunnel vision and the increasing desire to vomit, before shakily righting himself back onto four legs- a design choice he was again grateful for, but Soundwave was already eyeing the hole in the roof and the blue skies beyond, platelets shivering and folding back as he started to take his altmode.

For a moment, a version of planet Earth with Soundwave wreaking havoc upon the population flashed before his eyes and Raf screamed bloody murder, barrelling straight at him and throwing his entire weight at the half-formed Decepticon with all the violence he could muster, and together, they both toppled through the still open space bridge at the center of the platform.


	2. Meetings

The world splintered open like blue-green seaglass, fractalizing around kaleidoscopic patterns of light and sound before dumping Soundwave and the human with its weird half-cybertronian upgrade back into the Autobot base and fizzling out of existence.

Only, Soundwave thought it was the Autobot base. It was all white, weirdly pristine and smooth, missing the jerry-rigged features of the warehouse base Soundwave had just nearly destroyed. Something about it was oddly familiar, actually, in a really old, achy way. It took his processor a moment to place the aesthetic, but it jarred him with how similar it was to prewar Cybertronian religious decorum- like the late period of the Primal Resonance, with a few alterations here and there, but the similarities were pretty apparent. He (and apparently, also the human) were so busy being confused by the sudden change in decor that they had failed to notice the mech on the far side of the room, staring at them with the same startled bewilderment.

Soundwave cocked his head at him, because what he was looking at made no sense compared to his recon data. The human in its suit was still sitting on his chest and it sat up, balking, before sputtering static.

“Optimus?!” It cried, and Optimus Prime opened fire on both of them.

* * *

 

Arcee looked up from her databank screen where she was reviewing a new bill proposition for equal coolant distribution to the lower levels. On the bookcase on the far right wall, stored to the brim with earth movies and pulpy Cybertronian action novels stored in thin, cracked datapads, was a single metal horn set gently into a glass box to keep the dust away. She smiled at it and sighed, stretching her arms upward and groaning as he platelets ruffled to compensate for the stretch.

She had never really been built for this kind of work. She was a soldier, and that was about all she was good for. She followed orders, ahe didn’t write laws. Not to mention she didn’t even want the charisma required to be a well-recieved political figure- but only Bee and Knock Out had been interested in working in the new Senate after the restoration, and if Arcee would be stuffed and mounted before she let those two children duke it out, probably literally, on the senate floor.

Besides, she had nothing else to do with her time. War was what she had been built for, there was nothing else she could do.

The door burst open and two blubbering children shoved past each other into her office, trying to yell over each other and frantically waving their arms like the world itself was ending.

“Wh- whoa, whoa, Primus, slow down there, what’s wrong?” She said, standing when the red one, whom she vaguely recognized as Bee’s assistant, grabbed her by the servo and tried to pull her toward the door while the blue one screamed bloody murder that they were all doomed.

The blue one was bouncing on the rubber wheels in his pedes, trying to navigate around Bee’s assistant and jerkily describing something with his arms that she only caught bits and pieces of, “-was fine, but _then_ -”, “-yelling!! He grabbed the keyboard-”, “-an organic-”, “-ator Bumblebee said to come get you!!”

“Bee?” She said, and the world slowed to a crawl as the blue one’s elbow jerked to his left as he tried to shift around in front of the red one and smashed into the glass case and the cybermetal horn placed so carefully within. For a moment, everything flickered dark.

She looked at the horn in her hand in a moment of confusion, slim fingers curled over the arch of it, before looking up and away from the glass shards digging into her palm toward the two mechs sitting on the floor of her office and looking plum terrified out of their minds. She followed their line of sight, confused, to her left hand and the blaster transformed from the end of her arm, powered up, safety off, locked on between the blue one’s optics.

She disengaged immediately, transforming her blaster away and back into her hand, crushing it against her chest and scooting back along the floor until her back hit the bookcase, panting through flared vents.

“I-” she started, unfurling her hands from her chest to watch them quiver against the horn, “I’m sorry, I don’t- I don’t know what happened.”

“It’s okay-” the red one said quietly, though she noticed he had very subtly moved himself just barely in front of the blue one, who was shaking like a leaf, wide opticced and tense, “Bee told me to be careful around your stuff. I’m sorry.”

She also noticed he had not been the one to have broken the case.

“It’s not about stuff-” she said, then closed her optics, exventing, and subspaced the horn into a pocket of emptiness within her chest compartment, “Nevermind. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

The red one nodded. The blue one did not.

“Okay. Okay, let’s try this again then. What are your names, and what happened?”

“I’m Blurr!” The blue one blurted, and the red one gave him a weird look.

“I’m Rodi- I’m Hot Rod. Bee said Blurr had to come get you.”

“Why?”

“Somebody blew up the autobase on Earth and Bee jumped through the spacebridge but he never came out the other side!” Blurr blurted, and Arcee balked.

“ _What_?!”

* * *

 

Bumblebee had been forged with pseudo wings.

He’d always liked them- most of his affiliates were unsettled by anything that reminded them of flight, but in truth, Bumblebee had never really hated the Decepticons. Sure, he knew they were the enemy, and he appreciated the horrors of war they had created and he would gladly lay down his life fighting them, but it wasn’t all blind hatred. He didn’t really blame the people who hated them, though, either. They’d all lost a lot.

Bee had been a last waver- born mid war, he had never seen Cybertron when it was not on fire. It was difficult to find any attachment to pre war Cybertron, to mourn it like everyone else did, when he had never even seen it. Frankly, Bee preferred Earth and its blue skies and organic gentleness- the soft breezes and non-acidic rain. The planet itself was beautiful and rich with history and life. As much as he loved Cybertron and as dedicated as he was to fixing it, it often felt like he was living in someone else’s home, retrofitting a world he’d not been built for.

Vos was pretty, anyway.

So unlike most of the people he cared about, seeing wings on an Autobot was not disconcerting. Most Autobots had pseudo wings, despite the many claims they were unattractive features. He liked his. They were sporty. They served no real purpose, which was something so uncommon in a war where his every ration was timed and calculated, when he slept in regulated shifts. Everything and everyone had to serve a purpose.

But then, he had car doors fluttering on his back and doing anything but being useful.

Usually he found a comfort in that, in the rebelliousness of uselessness, but right now, catapulted straight down out of a spacebridge and quickly reaching terminal velocity as he rocketed toward the earth from eighty thousand feet, he was finding very little comfort in anything.

This was the opposite of the kind of time he wanted useless pseudo-wings. He would have really preferred working, functional wings right now, because if he didn’t find some way to slow his ascent or stop it, he was probably going to die at the tail end of the next three minutes.

Luckily, he had one flying friend left on earth with access to a spacebridge.

* * *

 

Raf dove behind a nearby databank, avoiding the volley of fire from Optimus’s blaster. Soundwave fared less fortunately and took several solid blasts to the chest before he managed to follow the skittering human to safety, pressing his back against the databank.

“How is Optimus alive?!” Raf yelled, maybe to himself and maybe to Soundwave, who was crouched next to him, and Soundwave gestured in such a way as to say he didn’t much care but he was upset Raf thought he did. Raf ignored him.

“Where the slag did they come from?!” A voice said from the other side of the room. Raf was a little too distacted to identify it, but it wasn’t deep enough to be Optimus, at least.

“It’s me! Raf!” Raf cried, waving one paw over the top of the databank. A lazer blast clipped it and he yanked it back with a yelp.

Raf scrabbled up on top of the monitor and let the armour peel back and away from him, sitting upright out of half transformed armour like he was climbing out of a pool, “Optimus! It’s me, don’t shoot!”

Optimus paused for a moment, staring at him, and Raf finally got a look at the owner of the other voice- a tall, gangly yellow-orange bot with a gold combat visor and z-shaped orange finials. Optimus and Raf locked eyes for a long moment, before Optimus adjusted his firing trajectory and resumed shooting.

* * *

 

Blurr was digging the thumb of his right servo into his left palm anxiously, following behind Hot Rod and Senator Arcee down the hall as she visibly tried to resist running to the spacebridge hangar. Hot Rod was telling her everything Blurr had told him, along with how he was temporarily in charge of Senator Bumblebee’s position now, supposedly, and Blurr was hanging back behind them trying to avoid having an anxiety attack. Or maybe he was riding out an anxiety attack, it was difficult to say But it was definitely one of them.

He walked facefirst into Hot Rod with an “Oof!” When they stopped in the hall before he noticed, and he rubbed at his faceplate where he’d practically headbutted his friend, peeking around Hot Rod's shoulder to see Senator Arcee giving the Predaconian ambassador a tightlipped smile.

Ambassador Divebomb smiled back at Arcee in a moderately genuine way, while his guard, Delegate Ripclaw, merely growled.

“Senator Arcee!” He intoned, sliding around his guard to clasp her hands in his, “How lovely to see you. You know, Ripclaw and I were just speaking about you,” Ripclaw growled either antagonistically or agreeably, “And she agreed that we simply _must_ do one of those political dinners you Autobots so fancy soon.”

“Yes, Ambassador, we-”

“Oh, just Divebomb is fine.”

“-we must do that. Soon, in fact. I will have my assistant draw up some invitations, how does next Tuesday sound?”

Divebomb tittered, clasping his clawed servos together, “ _Delightful_ , dear. I’ll have Ripclaw clear my schedule.”

Ripclaw growled again.

“Wonderful, Ambassador, now-”

“Divebomb.”

“…Ambassador, now, I must be on my way, I’m, um-” she paused, and looked at the two interns she had in tow, “One of these interns threw up in my office. He’s very ill. I have to take him to Knock Out immediately.”

“Oh, dear, are you unwell?” Divebomb said with actually genuine concern, leaning around Arcee to look at Hot Rod and Blurr, who looked at eachother for a moment before they both burst into vicious coughing fits and glared at each other dumbly, then looked back at Arcee.

“…It appears they’re _both_ sick, now,” Arcee said tightly, and Delegate Ripclaw narrowed her eyes at them, “In any case, I really must go! But I promise, my assistant will be in touch!”

Blurr let Arcee grab him by the wrist the way she had Hot Rod and drag them both down the hall and around the corner, but he didn’t miss Ripclaw and Divebomb’s optics on them before they moved out of sight.

* * *

 

“Blades!” Bee shrieked into his comm unit. A moment of static, and then the line filled with white noise.

“Uh- who’s this?”

“It’s Bumblebee!”

“Bumble- seriously? And you’re _talking?_ ”

“Yes, I am, it’s- okay look I don’t know ehy that surprises you but I’ll figure it out later, I really, really need a bridge right now, Blades! Transmitting coordinates now!”

“I- uh. Okay, sure.”

Bee fell for another solid forty five seconds, spark pulsing terror in his chest before a groundbridge portal flared to life in front of him and he passed through it, still at terminal velocity.

Luckily, Blades was not an idiot, and the outgoing bridge had sent him straight upwards, reversing it.

He purged when he hit the ground, though. A couple of times.

When he was finished he looked away from the puddle of his own vomitted half-processed cyan energon and up at the black and orange helicopter in front of him, giving him a baffled look.

Bee stared at him for a solid thirty seconds before he spoke, “Huh.”

* * *

 

Raf froze, in abject shock, surprise and horror as the first blast shot toward him, but the world tumbled backward before it could hit him, and when the world stopped spinning he was still half transformed, clasped until Soundwave’s left arm and being carried through a glimmering white hallway. He dove back into the armour and was pleased to see he reintegrated in a solid five point eight seconds this time, then kicked out of Soundwave’s grasp and rammed his legs.

They both went tumbling down the hallway, eldctronic shrieks and Raf yelling, which was becoming a familiar combination.

Soundwave scrambled back to his pedes and glanced at Raf before spinning into his alt mode and jetting down the skinny hallway.

“Hey! Where the hell do you think _you’re_ going?!” Raf yelled, digging his claws into the chrome floor and taking off in pursuit. It was brief; the hall wasn’t long, and Soundwave appeared to have crashed through the double doors of the next room at the end of the hall into the warehouse area and was now stumbling around the room in his root mode, grabbing at doors and databanks.

Raf recognized the room he was in- despite the weird white, glowing decor this was still the Unit E warehouse. Soundwave was going in exactly the opposite direction he needed to be going to escape. Raf briefly considered abandoning the base and leaving him here to be captured by the Autobots, but the sight of the late Optimus Prime shooting at him, _him_ , was unshakeable.

“Soundwave!” He yelled, hopping onto a table and digging his claws into it, “Temporary truce?” Soundwave paused, then nodded slightly, “Good! Alright, terms later, just don’t fragging shoot me and give me a boost to the ceiling!”

Soundwave didn’t hesitate to grab and throw him. Raf hit the rafters with a thump and scrambled back onto the beam he was tossed over, limbs everywhere, but the tail had been a wise addition; it really was fantastic for balance.

Optimus, the orange bot and a pale yellow and white Cliffjumper burst into the room, shooting, and Raf decided whatever the hell was going on was something he needed to figure out later, before ripping off the grating to the roof, climbing out of it and dropping to the ground, dizzy and panting and really glad for the extra stabilizers he’d built, before ripping off the external lock from the warehouse bay doors and jumping back.

Soundwave ran forward out of the base, taking several energon bullets to the back, before grabbing Raf by the scruff, tossing him and transforming. Raf grabbed the back of the UAV and clung for dear life as it accelerated out of firing range.


	3. Old Friends

Raf promptly scrambled out of the armour that couldn't give way fast enough, hands clamped over his lips, leaned over the side and puked up everything he could. His head was simultaneously spinning and throbbing and it felt like his stomach would fall out if he could unjam it from his throat.

Insides completely emptied, he fell back into the open armour and shut his eyes, resting his head back on it and panting, "Okay. Okay. Shit. What was that?"

He forgot himself for a moment, before he opened his eyes and looked at Soundwave, who shrugged.

Raf sighed, "Are you going to shoot me?"

Soundwave shrugged.

"Are you going to shoot me right this second?"

Soundwave shook his head.

"Alright then."

He climbed shielded his face with his hands, peering out at the horizon, before he dipped back into the armour and checked the gps, but all his readings were scrambled. He glanced at Soundwave, who hadn't moved.

"Any idea where we are?"

Soundwave's visor lit up with a gps, and Raf studied it for a moment- they were still in Nevada at least.

A tiny red blip appeared on the far left edge, rapidly approaching, "What's that?" Raf said, gesturing with one paw.

Soundwave's visor clicked off and he opened a subspace cavity, pulling out a skinny handblaster. Raf swallowed.

 

* * *

"Are these typical output parameters?"

Blurr nodded, rubbing his hands together anxiously. Knock Out's optics moved back to the screen and he resumed his frantic typing, scrolling through data dumps and codestrings Blurr only understood enough to turn the thing on.

He fidgeted a little more, rolling his ankles intermittently, but Hot Rod held his hand and he squeezed that instead, grounding himself, and Knock Out turned back to him.

"This," he said, pointing at the screen with a single claw, "What is this?"

Blurr squinted at it, "Um... A location code?"

Knock Out rolled his optics, "To where? That's not the Autobot Base, you must have punched this code in a hundred times, have you _really_ not memorized it yet?"

Blurr squeaked, feeling small, "Um- no, sir, I have. That's not the Autobot Base, it's-" he ran the calculation in his head, "That's almost in orbit, at eighty thousand feet. Over the Atlantic Ocean."

Knock Out looked surprised and paused, "Oh. Well. Right then. That's-"

Arcee slammed a fist down on the unit with a snarl, "That's where the Nemesis was during the battle for the Cyberlock!"

Knock Out cast her a worried look that Blurr thought looked out of character for him, " _Surely_ you can't be suggesting-"

Senator Arcee glared at the screen, "I’m not _suggesting_ anything."

 

* * *

"Bumblebee?" Blades, or at least, Bee thought it was Blades, said, in shock, "Is that you?"

Bumblebee sat up, holding his head and looked around. This was the Rescue Bots' ship- and all four of them were staring at him. A black and orange helicopter who certainly looked like blades- if not pointier, a flame painted fire truck with a facemask that looked lIke Heatwave, a jet black cop car riddled with scrapes and holes wearing a visor like robocop and a stern frown that looked like Chase, and a red and purple constructibot that reminded him of Boulder- but there was no way these people were the Rescue Bots. Something was wrong here.

"Uh... Yes?" He said, sitting up.

Blades gave him a weird look before gathering him up in a hug that lifted him off the floor and Bee squeaked, actually squeaked, in surprise.

"Oh, I'm so glad!! I hated that awful vow of silence so much you know I love your _vooooice_!"

Bee bit his tongue on 'What vow of silence?' And instead said, "Oh, well, uh, thanks for catching me."

Blades set him down and danced back to the computer to shut it off, "Of course! Anything for you Bumblebee."

"Uh, yeah. Thanks?" Bee laughed uncomfortably. He glanced at Heatwave, who was watching him intently.

"Um... So..." Bee started, "Did I interrupt something?"

Blades waved a hand dismissively, "No, nooo! Just some silly little deserter hunt, but who cares?"

"Silly little deserter hu- Blades, this is our job," Heatwave growled from the other side of the room, leaning forward in his chair, "When the Prime entrusts you with a duty you don't call it fragging 'silly.'"

Blades pouted, "But Bumblebee is here."

"Heatwave is right, Blades," said Chase coolly, "You need to check your attitude. Before I check it for you."

Blades shrunk back and bowed his head, "Right. Yeah, sorry."

Something was very, very wrong here, and Bee knew he was in a precarious, delicate situation. He didn't know what it was, or why people he knew so well were acting so crazy, but he could sense the barely restrained tension in the room and he was afraid of it.

"Okay... Well..." He started, and all eyes were back on him, "I need to find Raf, so, if you could-"

"Raf?" Blades asked, cocking his head to the side.

"The, uh- the human kid. Brown hair, glasses?"

"Oh!" Blades said, clapping his servos together, "Your little pet! I didn't know you'd named it."

Something cold was prodding at Bee's spark uncertainly, some barely recognized danger, "Raf isn't a pet. He's my friend."

Blades giggled, "Right, right, semantics! Whatever you say, cutie bot."

"What?"

"Soooo, we can just bridge you right on back to ol' basity-base, so you can report in to Optimus. Oh, I'm so excited to see the Prime! We never find an excuse to call."

"Report in to- Optimus?!"

 

* * *

Divebomb fluttered his wings as he watched the Autobot senator and her entourage disappear down the corridor, before he turned to Ripclaw with a smile.

"My dear, I do believe we've found a bit of an opportunity here."

Ripclaw growled.

Divebomb stepped briskly forward down the hall away from Senator Arcee's office and toward the Predaconian embassy, tail swinging enthusiastically in his wake as he folded his arms behind him. Ripclaw followed in her alt mode, squeezing her wings against her sides in the thin Autobot hallways.

"We need to comm Predaking."

 

* * *

Raf looked around, seeing nothing. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Soundwave kicked him, hard, sending him skidding back across the desert. He clambered back to his feet, head spinning, ready to fight- and froze when he saw the place he'd just been standing cratered and burnt, smoke rising from a rapidly fading dim purple glow. An unfamiliar Cybe was racing toward them from a horizon that was not nearly as distant as Raf wished, two Vehicons fliers circling overhead.

Or- not unfamiliar at all, actually. It was almost definitely Breakdown. Sort of Breakdown- an orange and yellow Breakdown. Raf took a step back, trying to gauge what direction was best to run, and the right hand Vehicon, the one that had shot at him, landed with a thump, weapon trained on him. Raf froze.

"Soundwave?" The maybe-Breakdown said uncertainly, skidding to a halt in between them and transforming into his root mode, "Is... Is that really you?"

Soundwave looked confused, but he didn't lower the blaster.

"It- your serial code, you-" maybe-Breakdown said, " when your signal came back online we thought- it- is it really you?!"

Soundwave took a step back, and looked around him at the two Vehicons. Breakdown stepped forward, then stopped, dropped his gun and raised his hands.

Hesitantly, Soundwave lowered his own blaster, only to jerk violently when Breakdown rushed forward to hug him. He stepped back, holding him at arm's length.

"We thought- we thought you were dead!" Breakdown said, sniffling, "What's with the paintjob?? Where have you been? ...And who's the scrub attacking you?"

He was looking directly at Raf, who swallowed thickly, "I wasn't attacking him! And my name is Ra-"

"-Vage. Ravage," said Soundwave, and everyone turned to gape at him.

"Did you just- speak?" asked Breakdown.

Soundwave froze, then shook his head.

“My name is- uh- Ravage,” Raf finished lamely. Soundwave looked away. Breakdown looked confused.

“...Yeah… I can’t always tell what’s a recording, I guess,” He said, halfheartedly conceding.

Soundwave was silent.

 

* * *

Ratchet had his head in his hands on screen, the background stained with burn marks and toppled machinery. There was a long moment of silence, before he spoke, without looking up.

"Rafael is gone," he said hoarsely, "We've not yet found a body, but he's very small, so I expect we will once we’ve cleared away more of the debris."

"Couldn't Soundwave have just- taken him hostage?" Arcee said, voice breaking.

Knock Out ran a hand over his finials, "That would be unlike him."

"The Deployer Armour is missing, too," Ratchet said, optics still cast down, "Not even parts."

"That stupid meatbag," Knock Out hissed, and Arcee slammed him into the databank, shocking both of the interns who leapt back.

"Say that again!" Arcee yelled, pushing him down.

Knock Out kicked one of her legs out from under her and she slammed into the ground, chin hitting the concrete with a clang, "Stupid idiot fleshy! Imbecilic, oafish skinsack!"

He went to stomp at her and she grabbed his foot and yanked him onto the floor too, and they scrabbled at each other with their fists while Blurr and Hot Rod shook in the corner, completely terrified and uncertain how to react to the unexpected fight.

"They're- he is- he was our friend, Knock Out!"

"He was a stupid organic and he let himself get killed, the stupid- idiot- dimwitted- brat- he had to-"

Arcee stopped when she saw the lubricant pooling in his optics. They sat on the ground for a moment, Arcee's fist clenched around his shoulder pauldron, before she let go slowly and they stood, silent.

"Okay..." She said, slowly, wiping energon from the corner of her mouth, "Okay. Jack and Miko and Fowler are safe. It was the middle of the night. It could have been worse. We could have lost all of them."

Knock Out rubbed a sharp thumb over a new dent in his arm, then stood and returned to the console, while Hot Rod and Blurr exchanged nervous, confused looks, "We need to find Soundwave. We need to find _Bumblebee_."

 

* * *

Bumblebee stepped through the ground bridge portal full of apprehension. Something was seriously wrong here. It was definitely the Autobot base, but the white walls and all the lights were unfamiliar- and so were the laser burns and tipped machinery.

And Optimus Prime, standing in the middle of the room, surveying the damage.

He looked at him, and Bee opened his mouth to speak before Blades’ words slammed into him- your vow of silence.

He shut his mouth.

"Bumblebee," Optimus rumbled, stepping over a fallen, smoking databank, "I am so glad to see you. I trust you've completed your Primal Pilgrimage?"

Bee, hesitantly, nodded.

Optimus placed his hands on both of Bee's shoulders.

"I am glad. Praise be, weapon of Primus."

Bee nodded, very slowly, never taking his optics off of this maybe-Optimus, spark flickering with panic in his chest. This was wrong. This was not Optimus. Not his Optimus. This was not his base and not his Optimus, and something was very, _very_ wrong.

 

* * *

Raf trailed behind Soundwave as he followed Breakdown and the two Vehicons, who had been introduced to him as Radar and O2. His metal paws left strange prints in the dirt of the tunnel as they followed it, navigating through labyrinthine passageways in the darkness. He really should have installed night vision in the armour. It hadn't seemed like a priority at the time. He was using the heat vision sensors to keep an eye on the party, but they didn't put out as much heat as he would expect giant robots to produce.

"So who's the little guy?" Breakdown whispered, and Raf thought he might have turned to look at him, but he couldn't be certain.

Soundwave looked at him, visor flaring with information. Breakdown read it all with little grunts of affirmation and understanding.

“So you’re an old deployer, huh? What’s it like coming back online after-” he squinted at the screen, “Yeesh. ‘Leven thousand cycles?” He looked at Raf expectantly.

“Uh… weird,” He said, lamely, and Breakdown shrugged, turning back around.

Raf didn't trust Soundwave. He was obviously covering for him- creating a convenient alibi for his existence without being recognized, for the inevitable social mistakes he would make given the opportunity. Raf wasn't stupid, and the subtle instruction to play along was not lost on him.

“Yep, I was in stasis once, too- took a good ol’ smash to the noggin, too- kicked me offline for months! KO was worried damn near out his mind when I came back to the land of the living- Eleven thousand cycles, though, Primus. Oh, geez, sorry, Sounders. I can’t imagine wakin’ up after that much time. I can’t believe they didn’t dump your CR chamber.”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Raf added when Breakdown paused expectantly.

“Well, don’t you worry half of nothin’ about it, Ravage, you ain’t the only one here with a processor injury, so nobody gonna get mad at you if you forget stuff or act funny or get one of them seizures or nothin’, alright? So just you feel right at home."

Raf padded up between Soundwave and O2, and Breakdown glanced down at him.

“We're here, anyway."

Raf followed Breakdown's optics to the wall, but saw nothing. Radar stepped through it like it wasn't even there and Raf realized he was looking at a hologram. He hung back by Soundwave's heels anxiously- he might be covering him, and Raf might not be able to think of any better plans than follow along right now, but he didn’t trust the motives of a mech who had just tried to kill him.

The hologram faded away past his vision and opened up into another tunnel. They took a few more precise turns, a few more false hologram walls, and the cavern suddenly opened into a massive yawning cavern, with what looked like old shuttles and ship parts built into the walls, and a bustling crowd of activity.

At first no one noticed them, but the first and most closest members of the crowd saw Soundwave and froze, and then everyone behind them, until Raf was clinging to Soundwave’s heels, following him and Breakdown through a massive, silent crowd, all staring.

“I’m taking you to Megatron,” said Breakdown, succinctly.


	4. Opalescence

_Knock Out swore when the shelf toppled over, unable to hold both ends of it at once as he replaced the rivets along its supports. The shelf smashed into the box of Cybe-sized screws and rivets he had set on the counter, flipping the box up and into the air, scattering its contents like rain._

_He was halfway ready to slice the thing in half, or scream, or something, when a tiny voice distracted him._

_“Hey!”_

_He looked down. The little organic with the red optic covers was staring at him, holding a screw in both arms._

_“It’s okay. I’ll help you pick up, alright?”_

_Knock Out stared at it, baffled, but it just looked away and began filling its tiny arms with screws, before rolling them into the box, on its side on the floor. He didn’t say anything, but he righted the box and knelt down to clean up the scattered pieces, the organic ducking under things he couldn’t reach to retrieve lost bits and pieces, and when they’d finished, he commed Bumblebee to help Knock Out hold the shelf as he pressed the riveter into the supports._

_The organic kept smiling at him, beyond all logic, like it was okay, like him being an Autobot was okay, like they could be allies after all the times Knock Out had tried to kill them, like they could ever trust him, like he would ever even want them to._

_He just kept smiling._

* * *

 

Knock Out poured over the output data from the Spacebridge activation- in here somewhere was the single line of foreign code that would tell him where they were, where Bee was so they could bring him back-

Where Soundwave was so Knock Out could bridge him inside of an active volcano.

* * *

 

The place was still smoking, so he was reasonably confident the damage was recent. Bee gestured toward the the wreckage with a sweeping motion and an inquisitive expression.

Optimus looked somber and turned away, “Those who stand against Primus’ healing light would stand also against our way of life, Bumblebee, as you well know. The destruction before you, is the responsibility of the Decepticons. Though we thought him long dead, the Sinner Soundwave led some kind of surprise attack this morning. I am not certain the intention of his mission here, though I am sure it was as nefarious as it was blasphemous.”

Bee’s spark sank.

“As well,” Optimus continued, inspecting a spot on the floor, “He had with him a cohort I did not recognize- the Decepticons may have recieved limited reinforcements. We will be on guard. Oh, and I think I recognized your pet with him- I think they might have taken it. I’m very sorry, I did ensure Brother Smokescreen kept it fed in your absence. We can get you a new one.”

Bee thought every line in his body was going to explode, mind racing. Clearly Soundwave and Raf had bridged in here- cohort may have meant someone else, but he had his strong suspicions that he had mistaken the Deployer Armour for a Cybertronian, and Bee didn’t blame him- it looked authentic enough.

But they’d escaped. So Optimus hadn’t killed him, but he had, by the look of the room, tried. That meant he was still with Soundwave, though, and that was probably worse.

Optimus was clearly finished with this conversation, and Bee edged away, down the residential hall.

The doors were unfamiliar, gold plaqued and inscribed with old Cybertronian, a language he had never learned to read.

One door opened, and a cyan-blue, silver-flame covered Smokescreen stepped out, stopped, looked at him, and smiled lopsidedly.

“Dude! Buzzboy, you’re back! You gotta check out the trick I taught your pet.”

* * *

 

Soundwave did not trust this place, or these people. It looked like an emptied out energon mine, with hodge podged derelict ships and machinery jammed into the walls and piled into hutongs to make pseudo-streets, a bustling hub of activity. There were familiar faces- Vehicons covered in poster paint and cobbled together spoilers, horns, mouths, pauldrons- people he knew from the war, people who had died, all painted wrong, all looking at him wrong, all staring, staring, staring and parting like waves of the ocean in the books if human mythology he’d download.

Parting like a rust sea of regrets and mistakes, of the dead and the forgotten. He tried not avoid eye contact, but they had so many eyes.

At the other end of the room they found a staircase that spiralled up through the bedrock and opened into a much smaller cavern, like by low burning oil fires and the red biologhts of an elaborately painted mech hunched over a desk, all red swirls and gold outlines, cerulean accents around white spots and black spatters. It was intricate, and complicated and detailed and looked like someone had spent months on it alone- and the mech looked up, looked at him.

“Soundwave?” Said Megatron.

* * *

 

“Predaking, sire. I have some news of your interest I must report.”

“Speak.”

Divebomb tried not to fidget in front of the console, rubbing his clawed servos together, “The Autobots are acting strangely, Sire. Senator Arcee lied to me this morning, though I am uncertain why- but I do think it has something to do with this morning’s powersurge on the half of the building with the Spacebridge, and-”

“Certainly you wouldn’t have called for just that.”

“Of course not, sire. Senator Bumblebee is missing.”

There was a long, tense silence, before Predaking leaned in closely to the screen, bristling, “Prepare for my arrival, Divebomb.”

Divebomb bowed.

* * *

 

Bee’s first instinct was to shoot Smokescreen, which only further horrified him, and even realizing that he had for a moment very seriously considered shooting his friend made his tanks roll and he wanted to purge.

Smokescreen prodded “Raf” with one sharpened servo and he toppled over out of the handstand he’s been goaded into by Smokescreen while Bee was busy gaping, and when Smokescreen _laughed_ Bee actually _did_ shoot him, before he even realized what he was doing.

Smokescreen was definitely out cold, but not dead- even shooting blind panicked Bee didn’t shoot to kill, and some part of him was relieved by that.

“Raf-” he whispered at the cowering human, all trussed up in white, and filthy, “Raf, oh, god. What did they do to you?”

Raf didn’t look up, but Bee clenched his hands into fists at his sides at the sight and Raf flinched. He uncurled his hands and stood back.

“Hey- hey- please look up. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Maybe-Raf looked up, hands still clasped over his head, still quivering, but remained silent.

“I’m not- I’m not who you think I am. I’m not who I look like.”

Raf didn’t react other than to shrink further into himself.

“No- no. I don’t want you to trust me. You shouldn’t. I’m sorry- I am so _sorry_ , Raf, I can’t- I didn’t- This whole world is so- so- it’s so _fucked up_ , Raf-” he was stammering and he kept backing up; into the far wall, servos clasped over his mouth, legs trembling like twigs in a hurricane. He hit the wall.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Raf whispered.

“I won’t,” Bee whispered, optics wide, “I’m going to hurt _everyone else_.”

* * *

 

Raf wasn’t a fan of hugs.

Any kind of physical intimacy made him uncomfortable- even just a casual touch. PDA especially made him anxious. The feeling was noticeably exaggerated, though, by the fact it was Megatron hugging Soundwave, in a cave, and he was a cat, and everything was weird and he wanted to go home, and good god, why were they hugging?

Maybe-Megatron finally stepped back, holding Soundwave at arm’s length with moist optics and Raf immediately felt a thousand times more uncomfortable in the situation. Soundwave had little reaction, but from Raf’s height, he could see the light tremble in his slim fingers.

“Soundwave. _Soundwave_. Soundwave- I can’t believe you’re _alive_. If- if I had thought there was a chance, even _one percent_ , even _half a percent_ \- I would- I would never have left. Oh, _Primus_ , Soundwave-”

Ugh. More hugging.

Soundwave was still shaking though. Raf thought he couldn’t be the only one to notice it, but Megatron seemed somewhat… Distracted. Raf stepped forward and nosed between them, quietly.

Megatron stepped back, and looked down at him, Frowning.

“Ravage?”

* * *

 

“There,” said Knock Out, tracing the erroneous line with one slender claw, “There it is. That’s it. He hacked into the bridge, and set up and intermediary exit point. See, he went through it from the middle out the side to Earth… But he must have gone back through, because going towards the intermediary point, which was interdimensional completely sent every calibration absolutely haywire.”

“So where’s Bee?” Arcee said, leaning on the console. Knock Out raised both arms and shrugged.

“Primus knows, but, potentially, I think I can get us there- that is, if Ratchet can fix the Spacebridge on his end.”

“I need to replace some components damaged in the fire,” said Ratchet from the screen, “Call me if you have any updates.”

The call ended.

Knock Out swivelled back to Arcee, “Well then, it seems we have a plan.”

“What- the plan is to just- to just wait?! How is that a plan, Knock Out?!”

“Oh no.”

Everyone turned to look at Hot Rod, who had gone rigid.

“What is it, Roddy?” Blurr asked, tugging on his arm, and Hot Rod swallowed.

“I’ve just got a hailing call for Senator Bumblebee, sir,” he said, looking at Arcee, who narrowed his optics, “Predaking is on his way. He wants to talk to Bee.”

* * *

 

Bee pulled out a pair of Raf’s spare glasses from his subspace and set them on the counter, then backed away again to the far wall. Raf eyed him for a minute, eyed the glasses and approached them cautiously. He kept his eyes on Bee the whole time, before he finally picked them up and put them on. Ever so slightly his shoulders slackened.

“You’re not him, are you?” Raf whispered, and Bee shook his head.

He sat back on the counter and hugged his arms, looking down at Smokescreen, smoking in the corner.

“Is he dead?”

Bee shook his head.

Raf looked disappointed, “Oh. Are you… Taking me? Am I yours now?”

“What?! No!” Bee burst, and Raf flinched. He let his voice drop again, “No. No, scrap, Raf- no. You don’t belong to anyone. I’m- look, okay, I think I might be from another universe, or, the past, or something, but I am not leaving you here. Not like this. No way.”

Raf watched him with what was obviously very practiced neutrality. He didn’t need any sensors to see the way his hands were clenched into fists, the way the pads of his feet were still firmly rooted to the ground, the way his eyes twitched and surveyed sporadically. He thought he was being subtle.

He’d been unsettled by this Optimus, by this Blades, but this Raf? This was unacceptable. These Autobots- if they were Autobots- had let him keep a human as a pet- a cursory glance made it clear he was traumatized and abused and no real Autobot would allow that knowingly. These were not his Autobots. This was not his family.

This was not a place he was abandoning any version of his friend, real or not.


End file.
